Defacto/spouse Visa 47SP/40SP vs Prospective Marriage visa

**deej** · 10-01-2009, 12:29 PM

Hi,

We were wondering if anyone's got any knowledge & experience with the Spouse/Defacto visa - 47SP, 40SP verses the prospective marriage visa?
I'm Australian & my partner is from UK and we're applying outside Australia.
We believe the better visa is the Defacto/Spouse visa because you only have to apply once, for both the temporary visa and the perm. visa. Is this really the case?

We were also wondering roughly how long it takes for the visa to be granted? And what is the time they give you to settle all affairs before you have to travel to Australia?

We're trying to do it ourselves rather than paying a fortune to an advisor. We've tried to contact the officials for assistance, but they were very vague, and actually reluctant to give any advice.

**Cookiecrew** · 10-01-2009, 01:54 PM

Hi,
I have been granted a defacto visa after applying for it myself without an agent. The forms are quite straightforward and if you do get stuck on any questions someone on here will be able to help. I'd recommend doing it yourself personally as it's not that difficult. Mine was granted in a matter of weeks and they give you 1 year from the date of your medical or police check - whichever is done first, to get into Oz to validate the visa.
I didn't really look into the prospective marriage visa but think i've heard that you need to get married within 9 months of arriving in Oz and have to show evidence of wedding planning when you apply for the visa (hopefully someone will correct me if this is not the case).
For the defacto you will need to supply evidence of your relationship (for at least the last year) such as joint bills etc and both write a statement about your committment to each other. The temp and perm visa are included in the one fee and they look into the perm visa for you 2 years after granting you the temp - but if you can prove you've been together over 5 years or have children they have been known to grant the permanent visa straight away. I have the temp visa.
Good luck. Feel free to ask anymore questions if you need to.
c

**deej** · 10-01-2009, 02:28 PM

I didn't realise it would be that quick! We've virtually completed all the forms, just working on our own 'declarations'. Thanks for your comments - it's given us some positive vibes and inspired us to carry on.

**whysailing** · 14-01-2009, 02:16 PM

How long does it take everyone to get the Med in London? I mean from phoning up the clinics for appointment to they sending off the check result?

**smc01** · 14-01-2009, 03:22 PM

My partner had his meds done in Kingston, I think from when he called the appointment was about 2-3 weeks after, but you have to get the x-ray a few days before the actual medical - they then send the results direct to Australia House, if your application hasn't arrived yet it's ok because they'll have it on file and will still match them up when the application does arrive.

His meds arrived there prob about a month before we finally got the application in (as a result of thinking we could get it done faster than we could!) but our C/O didn't request to have them added to our file until the very last step, once he was satisfied we met the actual relationship requirements.

Hope this helps!!